The 12 'TTP' men who laid down their arms all belonged to the banned outfit and were wanted by security forces because of their involvement in different terror activities, security sources said.

Orakzai is one of Pakistan’s seven semi-autonomous tribal regions in the northwest, where Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked militants are said to have carved out strongholds.

It was a key abode of former Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Hakimullah Mehsud before he was killed in a US drone strike in North Waziristan in 2013.

Pakistan's military has intensified its operations against militants in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan in the aftermath of deadly Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar that killed 150 people, mostly children in December 2014.

Earlier in June, Director-General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Asim Bajwa had said that 2,763 suspected terrorists had been killed in the North Waziristan since the commencement of Operation Zarb-i-Azb last year.

He said that thousands of suspected terrorists and their abettors had been apprehended whereas ‘218 hardcore terrorists’ were killed in around 9,000 intelligence-based-operations (IBOs), while nearly 350 military men lost their lives in the fight against militancy.